Defining and redefining the history and future of poker

Hu Vs. IoSys

We aren’t attacking this problem properly. Collusion and bots is really, from the intelligent/winning players’ point of view, an attack on the profitably of the game.

I follow a lot of tech industry and the great minds in it and especially Szabo who is well known as the main brains behind the bitcoin project. We MUST start with the assumption that there is no way to “beat” bots with the standard type of human/bot detecting solutions.

If we understand the end-game (which as poker players we should be thinking about the equilibrium) we must understand that humans and bots are merging. As sci fi as this is today, we cannot expect as time goes by to solve the problem of distinguishing between humans and bots with any sort of technology or “captcha”.

We must start from the understanding bots exist, and are here to stay. We MUST start the dialogue with the realization that anything humans can do bots can do because this is the direction we are heading.

This suggests no DIRECT solution can solve the problem of bots.

Collusion seems unrelated but is certainly observably related when we think of these problems specifically in relation to profitability. If you made more money at a colluded table or a table of n-1 bots, would you really complain?

This is the philosophical perspective needed to “solve” bots and collusion…

Cliffs: Peg down the profitability of the game without even touching the existence of bots or collusion and you will have EFFECTIVELY solved the problem.

[QUOTE=Craggoo;47340336]Who’s going to pay the “poker specialists” checking for collusion? Who would pay the general customer support staff? Who would pay for additions to the site? Who would pay for server related costs? Who would pay for promotions?

You obviously haven’t thought anything through[/QUOTE]

On the one hand if you can some how secure/guarantee the profitability of the game collusion wouldn’t be a problem. But as a decentralized project having the community incentivize players as collusion detectors is both practical and feasible. In fact, and especially in light of recent events, such a method is far more efficient both in cost and detection, ESPECIALLY if the community finally had access to all of the relevant data. There can even be automated algorithms to do this anonymously (without revealing players info/retaining privacy).

There is no customer support per se. It SOUNDS controversial but we are talking about a theoretically fault proof system. Now for example bitcoin has this, BUT bitcoin BANKS do NOT have this. So for poker, the dealing and buyins and gameplay etc. will be perfectly fault proof, but depending on how the overall economic system works there still might be poker sites that offer a product and therefore such support.

So imagine a decentralized dealing and cash in and cash out process that is fault proof, and then “new” poker stars and “new” full tilt “new” x or “new” y site, that offers a marketing model and tournament/cash table structure. Then there can clearly be bonuses as well (not to mention a decentralized community could offer such bonuses.

As for server costs, there are none because its P2P obviously.

Simply put the ultimate reward is taking the centralized inefficiencies, solving them, and keeping the costs saved in the economy of the game.

Abstract. A secure peer-to-peer (p2p) version of traditional online poker would allow trustless and provably fair poker games. This p2p approach would reduce the overall cost to players and add more value through incentive schemes designed to reward higher player participation. The Ethereum Smart contract system is a fully decentralized programmatic set of contracts using advanced blockchain technologies;[ ref. 5] that will power one part of this solution; and Telehash [a secured network real time mesh technology; ref. 28] based, peer-to-peer poker network consensus provides the other major component. We propose an alternative solution to the traditional mental poker problem by using a novel combination of smart contracts and meshed based player networks. These p2p networks will form consensus, which is secured through the Ethereum blockchain by the economic majority stake and irreproducible activity. During a poker hand, Individual player actions resulting in state changes are broadcast to all opponents at a table during the game session and verified through a challenge response protocol by pools of statistical models of the poker network called jury pools. The pools then verify the table opponents’ copies of the current player broadcast against their received copies. Jurors (randomly selected players from the p2p poker network based on high stake and activity) are grouped into pools routinely, and replaced at regular time intervals by a system of contracts on the Ethereum network. Each node selected to a pool explicitly uses its stake as collateral and risks losing its stake if it breaks the network rules. This incentivizes fair play and creates a disincentive or very imbalanced risk/reward offering for potential cheaters. As long as the p2p network is sufficiently protected against large numbers of player nodes under the control of a single person/group (known as Sybil resilience), the poker consensus protocol can safely agree on the states of the games, the state of all player accounts, and therefore the state of the network. The Juror Pools will also agree on checkpoints to be permanently inserted in the parent blockchain each Epoch (a set of time-bound data allowing a summation of time that is divisible in 1 hour, 15 minute, and 1 minute increments). Dynamic members of the p2p poker network are updated using weak subjectivity [ref. 10] to the parent Ethereum blockchain. This means that nodes rejoining the network query and get the most recent epoch (last hour) of the network by querying the parent chain, then do the manual calculation to get up to speed on the current state of the network. This way nodes can be dynamic members of the p2p network leaving and rejoining the network with the guaranteed most up to date and secure state of the network, secured by the economic majority and activity of the network. The combination of: decentralized and randomized selection of jurors (via Ethereum smart contracts), decentralized mesh networks for p2p game interactions, and heavy use of advanced anti-cheating mechanisms will, by this submission, present the poker-playing community a new and fun platform for playing poker without requiring to trust any individual/single entity. This paper is intended to describe the basics of a fully decentralized poker game experience.

Pokererum basically proposes a zoom style seating arrangement that uses both stake and a proof of action/participation algorithm to secure the system. Then there is a randomly selected jury pool that verifies the gameplay. I think this would work and it effectively solves collusion but only with random seating.

I propose on top of this a tweak I think that wraps up the problem into something quite solvable. Basically public games (free for all zoom style bots) and private games that pay rake to the lower level public games for verification incentive).

Bots cannot enter private games but would necessarily fill up the public tables (only) to the degree it is profitable for them to do so. Then there is a secure p2p network, incentivized by privately paid rake, that ANYONE can use to create their own “private” tables or “private” sites.

THIS is something bots cannot do, they cannot invite themselves to private games. But truly what you are effectively doing is breaking down completely the barrier to entry that is currently holding up the unfavorable monopolistic conditions we see today.

The kicker/killer here I believe both you will appreciate is I think that you can set the system up to pay the most to habitual LOSERS, and by paying them a sort of rakeback/stake in the network, they can either keep in to “mine”/verify games and make more “value”, OR they can sell it to bot//node farms in exchange for money.

Please read a little more carefully or continue to ask questions/discuss. Firstly players are collectively waking up to the obvious realization that ALL networks today are crowded by bots.

If the highest profiting most powerful entity in the industry cannot stop bot pools from arising, especially in the more complex plo, how or why could we assume that bots aren’t already everywhere? So I think it’s somewhat wrong to suggest peoples would avoid this out of ignorance: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29…nners-1538509/

It seems WAY more realistic to suggest that players will care more and more as time goes by about the profitability of their field in relation to things such as bots and collusion.

But this is not what I have suggested. I have suggested that the only true solution is to incentivize bots to act as nodes to hold up the private network. Economically it is impossible for a market of poker bots to refuse such incentive as long as it is above their profits for “defecting”. Simply a generalization of the bitcoin.pdf and then specialized for the poker industry.

After that nothing changes and there can be no argument about what players will or will not play. There is no difference in this “future” world. Poker Stars can still be Poker Stars but now they can drop the costs of centralized server and security models. Since the public games set a standard of winrate, there is now the framework for a competitive industry.

New players can either join “sites’ or simple enter the bot-fest public pool. Poker players would do the former, and gamblers probably mostly the later (remember these are new players archetypes).

The only true change from your protest is that there is now a competitive market place, because the barrier of entry to create a new site is minus the server costs, minus much of the security costs, and minus much or all of the regulatory compliance costs (etc.)

We have to be careful not to suggest that what cannot happen is exactly the same thing people would say could not happen before bitcoin.

(thx!)

Originally Posted by iosys View Post … read more carefully or continue to ask questions/discuss. This seems reasonable for me to request especially depending on how far out of context my proposal is taken.

Quote: I’ve read all of the above before making the post you quoted. You or I have no insider knowledge on how well the industry combats bots. We have evidence that the most powerful site with the most powerful security is failing at securing (from the botting perspective) one of the more complex games .

Quote: Information that is posted by other players gives speculation on how much the industry is combating bots. Yet you cannot even assume that the bots that were running will be easier, harder or not able to detect by the information they’ve gathered. I’ve attacked the problem from the assumption that bots are prevalent and optimal, and also with the assumption that as time goes by bots will be more economically powerful and more optimal (therefore more prevalent). Solving this scenario necessarily addresses any unfavorable environment.

Quote: You gloss over why people will not want to run their bots on whichever private or public network if they disagree with any incentive proposed. Perhaps I did gloss over, you must forgive me, there is a ton of literature here. Especially relevant is the pokererum whitepaper, but also a diagram of the public/private system neither of which I can seem to post the links to. But your question here doesn’t quite make sense to me so I don’t think you are understanding me.

Bots are going to try to play anywhere that is profitable. If a bot makes 5$/h doing A, and 4$/h doing B, the large majority are going to do A, that’s basic economics. So there IS in fact an equilibrium here when it comes to incentivizing cooperation (in regards to using bot farms from public games as decentralized jurors/nodes for private games).

New sites that can arise now in competition with status quo can simply offer a better anti bot solution, OR a more profitable field, or both etc. Again I must point out the real problem is profitability, and very few players actually care about who they are playing in this regard. The biggest problem with bots is they kill the profitability of the field, secure the profitability and the bots problem effectively doesn’t exist.

Quote: You didn’t really bring much discussion with your posts by the way. I’m sorry but you haven’t understood 1% of what I am suggesting so it would take some time unfortunately. Perhaps others have thoughts.

One of the reasons peoples and computer scientists alike are so excited about bitcoin is its ability to solve exactly all of this. Bitcoin itself is basically a giant decentralized database in ledger form. The incorruptible block chain that it forms is much a p2p decentralized data base that in one sense perfectly addresses your concerns here.

Moreover there are new solutions, that use the blockchain and are SPECIFICALLY designed for mass data storage. Szabo whom is well known for the mastermind and also for many related papers which includes explanations on new technology based on the block chain such as a data storage service has designed all this many years ago. Pokerereum’s solution utilizes this.

Part of the amazing aspects of this is that you CAN actually create algorithms through something called “smart contracts” (secure open source automated programming), that can search such data WITHOUT revealing to ANYONE anything that should be considered private. In today’s model, sites like PS see your data and have access to it in exactly the way you are protesting.

So in short, using this p2p blockchain tech, we CAN actually have our cake and eat it too.

What we really need to (and will) start to understand is a centralized contracted security service is a GIANT leak/cost from the player’s perspective. Third parties are in fact themselves security leak holes, as we consistently find out.

Money doesn’t come from thin air, but I understand where money comes from far better than you, whether it be of the paper/fiat kind or the cypto kind. What is suggested here is simple the addition of share of a decentralized network paid out to the losing players. The “value” that fuels all this is simple being siphoned from the current existing inefficiencies of the centralized status quo models. I have maths to show the value but its kinda useless without links.

Originally Posted by iosys View Post I’m pretty sure that nobody is arguing, “anything humans can do bots can do” if you actually read the thread before you post. I understand that you get this, and many or some others as well. But collectively we are still thinking and offering solutions that try to “out game” the bots. But bots, we know, are the very thing that are starting to out game humans. The solution MUST be to incentivize them to cooperate for the integrity of the network. That equilibrium is exactly the genius behind bitcoin and it is clearly the only theoretical solution. Any other direction is just not understanding this.

Quote: The thing is that the majority if not all public bots that are running today are very much detectable because they are fairly new. In general “bots” are in the infancy years and even bots for popular games are considered the same because not much years have been spent on them compared to other areas in programming. Yes and the system I propose as an addendum to “pokererum” (which I highly advise you find and read if you or others haven’t) solves “gto” undetectable bots. I only do this because then the solution is 100% secure. Pokerereum developers for example did not at all address this as I understand (and they have expressed to me). It is also a great way, as I understand, to solve problems, by thinking of theoretical optimums and extrapolating solutions from the direction they lie in. Quote: Nobody is going to be playing poker by the time we have these brain chips because there will be better things to do and currency will be worthless. Well it might be fun to theorize and philosophize about but I think in our (natural) lifetime poker will in fact be a relic or a tradition that will continue on. Under my understanding not only can anyone host a NLHE or PLO game with a standard deck but rather all variations of games based on all decks. Peoples talk about poker dying, but really we haven’t even begun to explore card games of hidden information in this regard.

Quote: I’m curious to why you have to make new accounts all the time. I’m not sure I understand the question fully, I feel like i have something to offer the community, unfortunately others don’t…I guess you’ve decided I don’t (certainly you’ve called attention to me, where as I just try to be sincere and fit into the discussion, and offer any info I feel is valuable.).